


Us

by cookie_full_of_arsenic



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Identity stuff, Many many pop culture references, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 04:36:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_full_of_arsenic/pseuds/cookie_full_of_arsenic
Summary: The relationship between Michelle and Maureen, as it progresses over a year. From Michelle's POV. The unimaginative title was borrowed from a Regina Spektor song.





	Us

**Author's Note:**

> Writing in the voice of an obnoxious hipster came surprisingly easy. This fic is rated M for some sauciness that happens in the month of July, so feel free to skip that month, or skip all the other months, depending on what you're looking for.

January

It’s January, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Poems about pigeons.  
• Cakes shaped like typewriters.  
• Typewriters shaped like cakes.  
• Abba (in a kind of post-ironic way).  
• Maureen’s adorable hats.  
Hate  
• Poems about birds, except for pigeons.   
• Avocados.   
• Forks.  
• Unicorn tattoos.  
• Any TV show that wasn’t cancelled before it aired.

Business at Dark Owl Records seems slow after the pre-Christmas rush, but there’s a steady stream of young adults coming in to trade their unwanted socks and puppies for records. I don’t call young adults “teenagers”, it’s stigmatising to define someone by the way their age ends in a “teen” suffix. Besides, it makes me feel old.

Maureen has been coming in a lot. Last Friday she bought Regina Spektor’s “May Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories”. Not for the music, obviously, but for the artwork in the sleeve notes. This afternoon she came in but didn’t buy anything, just hung out for a while and helped me chase away guys with the wrong kind of beard by throwing pebbles at them.

She always wears the cutest hats. My favourite is the dusky pink leather beret with the live wasps. She has to put a teaspoon of raspberry jam on it every so often, to make sure the wasps stay, but it looks fantastic so it’s totally worth the effort. I also like the tartan beanie with the lace trim, even though it’s basic. Maureen is kind of basic I guess. Most of the music she likes is top 4000, and her hair is, like, her natural hair colour. She’s fun to talk to, though.

February

It’s February, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Fennel.   
• Flannel.  
• Funnels.  
• Fennel-flavoured funnel cake.  
• Maureen’s habit of being super-honest without making a big deal out of how honest she’s being.  
Hate  
• Gluten-free bread that looks, tastes and costs the same as bread with gluten in it. What’s the point?  
• TV commercials for prescription drugs.  
• All other TV commercials.  
• The nagging feeling that I’m wasting the best years of my life browsing stupid websites.  
• Ice-cream.

Maureen and I went out to dinner last night. That makes it sound like a big deal, or like I think it’s a big deal or something, and it totally isn’t a big deal and it totally didn’t feel like a big deal. Maybe if I explain it better, like start from the beginning.

It was a slow day at Dark Owl Records and Maureen had been hanging out with me for most of the afternoon. Maureen doesn’t have a job, and thinks it’s super-quirky and retro that I have one. She has a couple gigs, selling jewellery made out of hair and writing poems for greetings cards, but she doesn’t earn much money from them which is why she still lives with her parents.

So we were doing the Night Vale Times crossword puzzle, which was a lot easier than usual because every single word was “banana”, when she asked,  
“Hey, what time do you get off work?”  
“Five thirty-seven.”  
“Do you maybe wanna grab some dinner, or whatever?”

I totally wanted to grab some dinner with Maureen because, y’know, I like eating dinner and I like hanging out with Maureen, so combining the two made a lot of sense. But before I could say yes I just had to check. There have been … misinterpretations in the past, and those misinterpretations have upset people, and that’s kinda where I got my reputation as a bitch in high school.

“That sounds good but, um … it’s two friends getting dinner, right? Not, like, a date?”  
“No, yeah, totally. I meant as friends. I’m actually not interested in, like, anyone, romantically.”  
“No way!”  
“Err, yes way. You don’t have to make a big deal about it.”  
“No, I wasn’t being weird about it, I was just kinda surprised because I’m aromantic too.”  
“Oh. Cool.”

So at five thirty-seven, Maureen and I went to get dinner at Big Rico’s pizza. I had the samphire and oyster mushroom stew and she had the vegan veal chop with chicken-flavoured asparagus.

“So how old were you when you figured it all out?” she asked, halfway through the meal, and I knew what she was talking about straight away.  
“Junior year of high school. At first I thought I was a demiromantic greysexual, then I thought I was a cupioromantic sex-neutral ace, then I realised I was aromantic but thought I was sapiosexual. Turns out I just had a thing for glasses. Of course, before all that, I thought I was straight.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah. This is embarrassing, but I actually tried really hard.”  
“To be straight?”  
“Mm-hm. Like in middle school and the first two years of high school. I tried so hard to … feel the butterflies, you know. I used to swallow caterpillars, but that didn’t work. Then when I realised I couldn’t ever be normal, I was like, screw it. What’s so great about normal anyway? I’ll be the least normal person I can possibly be.”  
“Fair enough.”  
“So how about you? When did you figure it out?”  
“A little later than you, I guess. I was in college. I’d always been kinda meh about dating and making out and everything, and I figured that was because I was kinda meh about most things, but then I did a little research and it all clicked into place.”  
Then there was one of those lame, half-awkward silences where you both smile at the table, and then Maureen said,  
“Honestly, I’m pretty psyched that you agreed to hang out. I kinda have a squish on you, or whatever.”  
“Aw, really?”  
She got all squirmy and embarrassed, until I said “Relax, dude, it’s mutual.” Then we ate fennel-flavoured funnel cake for dessert.

March

It’s March. It looks like this is going to be one of those years where the months progress in the usual order, which is kind of a relief. Last year there were three Junes in a row, which I hated. June is such an overrated month. Anyway, here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• 99.999% cocoa chocolate.  
• The album “Hadestown” by Anais Mitchell.  
• Birmingham accents. The Birmingham in Britain, not the one in Alabama.  
• The song “Birmingham” by Shovels and Rope.  
• Maureen’s ability to calm me down when I’m freaking out.  
Hate  
• Fennel.  
• All flowers.  
• Shitty grammar.  
• Grammar Nazis.  
• People who compare everyone they don’t like to Nazis.

Maureen and I had a sleepover last night. I finished work at five thirty-seven and invited Maureen over for, like, seven-ish. Like, seven-ish is obviously code for thirteen minutes past seven, so this gave me an hour and thirty-six minutes to get home and get ready.

I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted Maureen to have an awesome time, partly because she’s an awesome person and awesome people deserve to have an awesome time, but also because I wanted her to want to sleep over again. It’d be soooo freakin’ awkward if we had a sleepover and it sucked and she was like “Let’s never do that again, ever.” I had a little performance anxiety, I guess.

I decided to cook a pork and fennel stir fry for dinner, but the fennel escaped from the meat grinder and I had to chase the damn thing all over the apartment. By the time Maureen arrived, it was perched on a shelf, throwing jars from the spice rack at me. She helped me catch it, and we shoved it into the meat grinder, but it gave her a gnarly scratch on the arm in the process.

Luckily, I keep a first aid kit for fennel-related accidents, but I damn-near cried as I dressed her wound.  
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she said. “It’s not that bad.”  
“I just wanted everything to be perfect.”  
“Jeez, perfect is for Instagram. Give me interesting over perfect any day.”

She’s the best, seriously. After that we actually had a pretty great sleepover. We watched a movie called “In Bruges”, about these two hitmen on vacation in Bruges. And we did rosehip and sandpaper exfoliating facemasks, and we both fell asleep in my bed, listening to this creepy British podcast called Gallowtree, about a town where all this weird stuff happens.

April

It’s April. The birds are singing, the bees are humming, the armadillos are perfecting their drum solos and life is pretty good, I guess. Here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• R ‘n’ B murder ballads.  
• Belgian movies about cannibalism.  
• Joyful participation in the suffering of the world.  
• Scorpions.  
• Maureen’s undying loyalty to the TV show “Supernatural”.  
Hate  
• Sports.  
• 99.999% cocoa chocolate. It’s too bitter. These days I much prefer 99.99% cocoa.  
• “Strong Female Characters”. Ugh. It’s like nobody realised that strength is a really boring personality trait, regardless of gender.  
• Being told to smile.  
• The 80s.

Maureen’s been hanging out at my place a lot. My apartment is tiny, but at least it’s less noisy than her family home. Sometimes we talk about where we’d like to live, like, our dream homes. My ideal home would be a rustic cabin in the middle of some deep, dark woods, close to New York. Maureen wants to live by the ocean.

We’ve got to that point where we can just slob out and relax together, which is nice. I’ve been introducing her to all my favourite web comics, and she introduced me to this TV show called Supernatural, which is incredibly lame but also the best thing ever. It’s about these two brothers who hunt demons with guns. Guns full of salt.

She got all excitable when she showed me the first episode, it was so cute.  
“So how long have you been watching it for?” I asked.  
“Since I was twelve.”  
“What the hell?”  
“Yeah, it’s been around a long time.”  
“But how … how do you like something for such a long time?”  
“What, you don’t still like anything you liked when you were a kid?”  
“I don’t still like anything I liked last month.”  
“You get bored easily, huh?”  
“Yeah.”  
She got a little quiet after that conversation, but I figured she just wanted to watch the show. 

May

It’s May, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Feathers.  
• That good kind of pain in your back when you lie down after a really long day.  
• The Bridge (the original Swedish/Danish one of course, not the remake).  
• Purple lipstick.  
• When Maureen plays with my hair.   
Hate  
• All Marvel movies, except Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I really tried to hate it, but couldn’t.  
• R ‘n’ B murder ballads.  
• Boring people whose hair is an interesting colour. I always feel tricked.  
• Butterfly-print scarves.  
• Butterflies.

So I met Maureen’s family. She invited me round for Sunday dinner, and it was … interesting. Her parents are pretty cool as parents go. Her younger brothers are loud and mischievous and also twins, and her younger sister is a Mexican red knee tarantula. 

We ate traditional Irish pizza bagels, and halfway through the meal Maureen’s dad cleared his throat and asked me “So what exactly are your intentions towards my daughter?” 

That took me by surprise, and I just about managed to mumble “Um, honourable ones, I guess?” before he burst out laughing.  
“Relax, kid, we know the score,” he said, and when I looked over at Maureen to get the measure of the situation, she’d gone bright pink.  
“So,” said Maureen’s mum, interlacing her fingers and looking all business-like. “Would you two say you’re zucchinis yet?”  
“Oh my God, Mum,” said Maureen, and buried her face in her hands. “Don’t ever say that word unless you’re talking about food.”  
“But I thought that’s what the kids called it these days. Should I say queerplatonic partners? It’s just such a mouthful. How about cuddle buddies? That’s much cuter.”

At this point, Maureen looked like she wanted the kitchen floor to swallow her up. Maybe the kitchen floor realised this, because it did. Apparently their kitchen floor does that sometimes, which is why they got such a good deal on the house.

Anyway, when we’d finished opening the kitchen floor up with pick axes and helping a disgruntled Maureen out, she sat back down at the table, brushed the dirt off her arms and said “We’re not putting a label on it at the moment. Right, Michelle?”  
“Right,” I said.  
And yeah, she was right. We don’t have a label and I don’t feel like we need one. Only … the whole conversation got me thinking. What exactly are my intentions towards Maureen?

I never really considered having, like, any kind of partner. Maybe that’s because I never wanted one. I mean, who wants that kind of heavy, restrictive commitment that’s gonna get in the way of self-actualisation? Or maybe it’s because I never thought I was entitled to that. Being wired the way I am, what the hell do I have to offer anyone?

June

It’s June, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• The movie “Frances Ha”. I cried. Maureen cried. Every arospec woman in the whole damn world cried.  
• Tomato soup.  
• Thick, fluffy socks.  
• Air conditioning.  
• Maureen’s ingenuity. She taught me how to make a basic air conditioner out of a box fan, some copper tubing, a cooler and a pack of bubblegum.  
Hate  
• The word “bumblebee”. It’s too obvious.  
• Beagles.  
• Purple lipstick.  
• Assholes who own cats. It’s like they’re using a cute animal to trick people into thinking they’re not assholes.  
• Chemicals. Except the ones that keep us alive, obviously. And caffeine. 

I don’t remember the first time me or Maureen said “I love you”. We say it plenty. Casually. Like, I say it whenever Maureen says something adorably basic or does something thoughtful, or, like, exists. 

July

It’s July, and it’s so hot outside that small birds are regularly bursting into flames mid-flight. Here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Mermaid-colored marshmallow fluff on toast.  
• Beautiful notebooks.  
• Jokes that nobody gets except me.  
• Jokes that nobody gets except me and Maureen.  
• Maureen’s laugh.  
Hate  
• People who act like mermaid-colored marshmallow fluff on toast is the solution to all of life’s problems.  
• Beautiful notebooks that are made from 100% recycled materials. These oughta be a little ugly, or people won’t realise they’re made from 100% recycled materials.  
• Tomato soup.  
• White people who think they’re basically Asian because they watch the subtitled versions of anime rather than the dubbed versions.  
• Jokes that everybody gets except me.

So, Maureen has a job now. Also, a thing happened. I guess the two are kinda related. 

She’s started waiting tables at Tourniquet. It’s hard work, and her boss is a jerk, and the dress code is totally sexist. Like, the women have to wear tuxedoes, even when the weather’s crazy hot, and the men are allowed to wear shorts.

One evening, she came over to my apartment after work and was super stressed-out, so I offered to draw her a bath. My tub is easily the best thing about my apartment – a big, claw-foot monster of a tub that makes a soothing growling noise when I run the hot water. I used, like, half a bottle of strawberry and sea salt bubble bath, and said a quick incantation to make the bath extra relaxing. Nothing fancy, just one of those multi-purpose incantations that works for stress, PMS, tension headaches, and mild rage induced by ignorant YouTube comments.

Maureen came and stood behind me as I was doing the incantation, and kissed the top of my head when I finished.  
“You’re the sweetest,” she said, and started taking her clothes off. “Do you wanna get in with me?”  
I did, of course, because this bath was a work of art. But though I’ve seen Maureen in various states of undress before, we’ve never been totally naked together.  
“Is that okay with you?” I asked, and Maureen said yes, so I stripped and got into the tub.

Obviously neither of us wanted to sit at the end with the faucets, so we both ended up down the other end, and Maureen lay back against me with her head on my chest. I crossed my arms across her belly, and she sighed like all the tension in her body was leaking out into the water.

Maybe it was the nakedness, or maybe it was the weightless feeling of being buoyed up by the water, but it was a kind of liberating experience. I felt like there were no boundaries between us, like I could say anything.  
“You have nice boobs,” I said, and she laughed. She has a great laugh. Not a giggle, but a big, rumbling laugh that seems to come right from her bones.  
“Thanks. You can play with them if you want.”  
This was further confirmation of the no-boundaries feeling, and I put my hands on her breasts partly out of curiosity, and partly because I wanted that feeling to stick around for a while longer. Her skin was incredibly soft. Her nipples felt like marshmallows, and then they didn’t feel like marshmallows. Her cheeks started to turn pink, and I thought maybe it was the heat of the water until,  
“Um … full disclosure, this is kinda turning me on.”  
“Yeah? Do you want me to stop?”  
“No, I like it. But stop if it’s making you uncomfortable.”  
“It’s not.”

So I carried on, stroking and cupping and gently squeezing. Maureen started to wriggle, and then I realised that her hands were on her thighs. Pretty high up.  
“Is it okay if I…?” she said, sounding breathless and urgent. Counting on me to know what she meant, and I did.  
“Sure, go ahead.”  
I carried on touching her, keeping my hands strictly above the water line, while she took care of herself below the water line. 

So … yeah. I don’t think it changes anything. I’m certainly not handing in my ace card, and things don’t feel any different between me and Maureen. Maybe it was a one-time thing, or maybe we’ll fool around again, some time. It doesn’t seem important. And that, in itself, is kinda seismic. 

August

It’s August, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• British grime artists with badly spelled names. Especially Big Narstie.  
• Christmas movies.   
• Frances McDormand.  
• Re-reading all the books I loved when I was twelve, like “Little Women” and “Anne of Green Gables” and “The Art of War”.  
• Maureen’s homemade oreos.   
Hate  
• Racist donkeys.  
• Any non-Christmas movie that doesn’t feature Frances McDormand.  
• Bacon. The smell of it tricks you into thinking it’s going to be delicious, and then it’s just salty and greasy.  
• Mermaid-colored marshmallow fluff on toast.  
• Werewolf horror. A human turning into a wolf? Ooh, scary. A vicious animal turning into a slightly less vicious animal. I’m freakin’ terrified.

Maureen and I went on our first trip together – a weekend at the Grand Canyon. We pitched a tent on the north side, since it’s a little less touristy, and went hiking and birdwatching and even rode donkeys. That was pretty cool, except Maureen got stuck with a racist donkey who kept complaining about Mexican immigrants. I guess she was a captive audience so he, like, took advantage of that. And since she was on his back, he couldn’t see her rolling her eyes.

There were a few other people on the donkey trip, but we didn’t talk to them much. This is going to sound awful, but every time I leave Night Vale, people always seem kinda weird. Like, everyone but me and Maureen acted as though they couldn’t hear this Donald Trump-wannabe donkey spouting his ignorant bullcrap. 

Maureen says the next trip we go on oughta have less hiking and more lying around on a beach. I don’t know about that – I’ve never been very good at keeping still. When we were hiking, Maureen had to keep stopping me and telling me to look at the view. It felt weird at first, just standing still and looking at rocks and sky. But then we’d sit down, and Maureen would hand me one of her homemade oreos, and we’d stay there for a long time. 

September

It’s September, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Rock stars who oughta be dead by now, but aren’t.  
• Seasons 1-3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  
• The Margaret Attwood short story “Stone Mattress”.  
• Figs.  
• The armadillo slippers that Maureen bought me for my birthday.  
Hate  
• Christmas movies.  
• “Asexual? Are you a bacteria? LOL”  
• Chain restaurants that pretend they aren’t chain restaurants.  
• Acoustic guitars.  
• People who react to something new and unfamiliar by either attacking it, or trying to wish it out of existence.

There are plenty of things that bug me about Maureen. Like when we eat out and she chooses her food after looking at the menu for, like, half a second, then gets food envy and tries to steal bits of my meal. She can be lazy sometimes, and her ignorance of slam poetry is shocking. 

Finding flaws in something is a good reason to move on to something new. Like, if you realise the bass player in your favourite band is a little sloppy, that’s when it’s time to find a new favourite. But I rarely get to that point. Usually I move on to the next thing before the thing can let me down. Maybe … I dunno. Maybe I’ve been missing out on something.

October

It’s October. The Halloween watermelons are brightening up the town, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Inuit pies (just as delicious as Eskimo pies, but less offensive).  
• Historical mystery novels set in ancient Greece.  
• Folk ballads set in convict-era Australia.  
• The new heavy metal themed florist in town. It’s called Heavy Petals.  
• Maureen’s creativity, especially her talent for Halloween watermelon carving.  
Hate  
• Rock stars who oughta be dead by now, but aren’t.  
• Zombie movies.  
• Zombie literature.  
• The Zombies (the band).  
• Zombies. Strutting around like they own this time of year.

Maureen got invited to a Halloween costume party by Cecil, the guy from Night Vale Radio where she once did an internship. Apparently she ran into Cecil and his husband outside the dog park, and Cecil was all happy to see her. He’s always happy to see her because not many people survive the Night Vale Radio internship program. He invited her to the party, and said she could bring a plus one if she wanted. 

It turns out that I’m her plus one. I’ve never been anyone’s plus one before.

The party was lame, but lame in an enjoyable way rather than a bad way. There was all this corny food, like mashed potato spiders with frankfurter legs, and Cecil’s husband Carlos was handing out shots in test tubes and punch in conical flasks. I dressed as Helga from the classic 90s cartoon “Hey Arnold”, but without a blond wig, people kept thinking I was dressed as Frieda Kahlo, because of the unibrow. Maureen dressed as Holland March from “The Nice Guys”. She just wrote “You will never be happy” on her hand and wore a stick-on moustache. 

We went back to my place after the party so that Maureen could pick up her phone charger. She was planning on going back home afterwards, but we ended up crashing out on the couch. I woke up around 2am, all tangled up with Maureen.

“Maureen? Wake up, pumpkin.”  
“What? What’s happening?”  
“We fell asleep.”  
“Crap. My mom’s gonna be mad.” She checked her glow in the dark pocket watch, and sighed. “Well, there’s no point going home now. Mom’s fast asleep and dreaming of a hundred different ways to guilt-trip me tomorrow.”

Maureen snuggled up to me and buried her face in the crook of my neck. Then she mumbled, “I love my family but I swear, living with them is driving me beserk. I wish I lived with you instead.”  
“Me too. We should totally get a place together someday.”  
“We could, you know. I can actually afford rent now that I have a job.”  
“Oh. Well then, maybe someday is like … tomorrow.”   
She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked at me. I could tell she was grinning because I could see her teeth glinting in the darkness.  
“Seriously?”  
“Seriously. Why not?”

November

It’s November, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate.

Like  
• Frost  
• Frosting  
• Frosted Mini-Wheats (the strawberry delight flavour).  
• Robert Frost  
• The way Maureen sometimes writes little fragments of my favourite Robert Frost poems on the bathroom mirror, in blood.  
Hate  
• Heavy Petals – that old heavy metal themed florist in town. It’s gotten really corporate.  
• Guys who refer to Jane Austen novels as “chick lit”.  
• Flies.  
• The fact that I really like the new Taylor Swift song.  
• The noisy plumbing in our apartment. 

We found a place pretty quickly. A small, two bedroom, ground floor apartment. Even though we sleep in the same bed half the time, we agreed it was best to have our own space. 

I got a little nervous when it came to signing the lease, because it’s a whole year. It’s been a while since I lived anywhere, or with anyone, for a year. Maureen must’ve seen I was anxious, because she made that tight-lipped face that she makes when she’s anxious too, but won’t admit it because she wants to calm me down.

“Are you sure about this?” she said, “Because we can always keep looking, or whatever. It’s okay.”  
I wasn’t sure, but I signed the lease anyway. Sometimes you just have to embrace the uncertainties of life.

December

It’s December, and here are some things that I like and some things that I hate about Christmas.

Like  
• The pretty Christmas lights in Radon Canyon.   
• Traditional Christmas desserts, like figgy pudding and mistletoe pie.  
• The smell of artificial snow.  
• Seeing my family.  
• Maureen dressing up as the wrong kind of Elf, just to be an asshole. Apparently she does this every year, and this year she dressed as Tauriel from the Hobbit movies.  
Hate  
• Rampant consumerism.  
• Forced merriment. Ugh. You can’t pre-arrange happiness.  
• Crowded stores.  
• Seeing my family.  
• The same songs, year after year after year. The idea that I’ll still have to listen to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” all through December when I’m an old lady and we’re all living on Mars is pretty freakin’ terrifying.

I spent last Christmas on my own. I was going to spend it with family, but then I had a huge fight with Mom because I came out to her and … well, she didn’t take it well. She got all upset, saying how she’d never be a grandmother and the family would end with me. Then I got angry because seriously, does she see me as a giant pair of ovaries instead of a person? And I went back to my apartment on Christmas Eve. 

I thought Christmas day would be depressing, but I actually woke up feeling pretty good. I felt free. I could do exactly what I wanted and be exactly who I wanted all day long. Granted, all I wanted to do was watch movies and eat salted caramels, but that made for a damn good Christmas. That was when I knew for sure that I’m not afraid of being alone. Being alone can be a powerful, liberating thing. Also, it can be a necessary thing. Necessary for getting to grips with who you are.

As we get closer to the next Christmas, it’s weird to think how much things have changed. For the first time, I’m living with someone who isn’t family, and who isn’t just a roommate. We’re still not putting a label on it and Maureen’s still chill about that. I don’t know if that’s gonna last, but if it doesn’t … if Maureen wants some kind of official commitment from me … I’m not afraid of that. Looking back over the year, it seems like Maureen’s the only thing I never get bored of. Maybe she’s endlessly fascinating. Maybe I’m just endlessly fascinated. Whatever. It works.

Even though she’s, like, the least materialistic person in the world, I wanted to get her a really nice Christmas present. So I went to Botelli’s Fine Jewellery and Frozen Yogurt Parlour, and picked out this beautiful silver bracelet. I took it up to the counter and asked if I could get it engraved.

“Sure thing,” said the guy behind the counter. “What would you like it to say?”  
“Um…”  
And then I just stood there, totally silent, for like five minutes. Because I had to fit something really big and complex onto to a tiny strip of metal. Eventually, the guy got tired of waiting and asked “Who is this for, exactly?”  
“My Maureen.”  
“And what do you want to say to this Maureen?”  
“I dunno.”  
“Well think harder lady, I ain’t got all day. Just close your eyes and think of everything she makes you feel.”  
I did that.  
“Now tell me what you wanna say to her.”  
So I left the store with a bracelet engraved with the words Can we, like, I dunno, just be us forever?

I hope she likes it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did these two ladies justice. This fic contains a lot of terms related to asexuality/aromanticism - if you want to understand them better, they should all be explained on the AVEN website, but feel free to ask.


End file.
